Director Florendo of the Philippine Statistics Authority; Dr. Eddie Llamedo, Chief Public Affairs Office; Dr. Jonathan Neil Erasmo; Friends from the Philippine Statistics Authority; Colleagues in the DOH; Friends from various Government officies;
Ladies and gentlemen.
Isang Pabebe Wave sa Inyong Lahat.
It’s
National Statistics Day so let us talk of Aldub to illustrate how important
statistics is. Do you know that statistics plays a role in the TV network wars
betwwn Aldub and Pastillas? The statistics we are gtalking about is the no. of
tweets for hashtags such #Aldub or #Pastillas.
So
you see statistics is indeed very important. Even TV networks recognize its
importance. Data in the internet such as no. of tweets on Twitter with certain
hashtags are now being analyzed.
Statistics
is important much more so with us in government. Decisions are made on policies to benefit the
public based on statistics -the policy on the use of seatbelts in vehicles for
example.
Success
of programs are evaluated using statistics.
A
number of statistics - results of various surveys are published online in the
Philippine Statistics Authority website covering various fields of interest -
Education and Mass Media, Labor and Employment, Income and Poverty, Agriculture
and Fisheries, Energy Consumption, to name some. We should take advantage of
these as we make decisions and policies.
In
Healthcare, statistics played an important role throughout history. Vaccination
to protect against certain infectious diseases have been justified with the
help of statistics. Smoking came to be known as associated to many diseases
including cancer because of it. Risk factors of heart disease were identified
with its help. And so we encounter terms used in textbooks, journals and other
scientific literature such as odds ratios and risk ratios.
Statistics
is now made easy for us these times because of technology. We have statistical
softwares to help us. Very big chunks of data can be collected, processed and
analyzed. There is no denying, data is within reach in the same way that we can
say Universal Health Care is within arms reach.
The
theme for this 26th National Statistics Month celebration is
“Pagyamanin at Gamitin ang Estadistika, Kalusugan para sa Lahat ay Abot Kamay
na.”
I
am sure you have heard of the DOH’s Goal of Kalusugang Pangkalahatan under President
Aquino’s administration. Healthcare now more than ever is being made more
accessible. Indigents now need not fear going to hospitals when the need arises
because of their own financial constraints with Philhealth’s programs such as Tsekap
and No Balanced Billing. More and more patients are enrolled in Philhealth to
avail of benefits and with each enrolment, loads of data is being supplied and
stored, waiting to be analyzed, potentially helpful data.
Technology
as mentioned earlier has introduced new data sets such as Big Data. The term “Big Data” came about with the rise
of social media. It is characterized by 4 V’s - Volume, Velocity, Veracity and Variety. The
best example to illustrate Big Data is data obtained from social media
(Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc.) Each day, how many people log in their social media accounts and post
statuses on Facebook, 120 character words in Twitter known as tweets at the
same time? Millions. They post what they see, how they feel, if they are sick.
Each second, imagine how many such posts are made. That’s Volume and Velocity.
Just about anyone can post in various forms – video, audio, photos, short
messages, comments, blog posts, etc. VERACITY and VARIETY. This is BIG DATA and
it is a gold mine of data even for health. We need to add a fifth V to it –
VALUE and that’s where statistics can also come in. By analyzing the content
and themes for example of these posts and applying statistics, we may be able
to predict upcoming outbreaks.
But
actually BIG DATA is not just limited to social media or the internet. In fact, data collected by Philhealth is
considered potentially as BIG DATA. It also possesses the 4 V’s with many
patients hospitalized, undergoing hemodialysis or procedures each day.
Philhealth data is rich with data that may be beneficial in establishing
disease associations with information such as demographic data, diagnosis,
length of stay, cost of treatment and many more. Imagine the valuable
statistics that can be generated by these data of course without disregarding
ethical, privacy and security issues that need to be addressed. In fact, in the
recent Global Forum for Research and Innovation I just attended, I just learned
that South Korea has been analyzing their BIG DATA from Philhealth’s
counterpart there for generating useful statistics for health providing
information such as distribution of medicine, prescribing tendencies, medical
equipment distribution, supply and demand of medical service, among others. To
make this possible, establishment of a fully functional health information
system is key along with a solid IT infrastructure.
Let
me go back to this celebration’s theme.
Pagyamanin
at Gamitin ang estadistika.
We
have the potential of Big Data from Philhealth which may be combined with other
data collected from other hospitals, agencies, communities or baranggays. The
first challenge perhaps is moving from paper-based records to making everything
digital or electronic. That’s one way para pagyamanin ang Estadistika but a
very challenging one.
Big
Data will figure prominently in the future of statistics - A treasure chest of
data that will go hand in hand with our goal of Universal health Care. We need more
data scientists for this. We also need to be prepared and equipped in
processing these complicated data, and walking the pathway of Health
Information Technology is the way to go. But there’s reason to celebrate….exciting
days are ahead as we are on the right track. Philhealth has the Philhealth
Information Management System and the DOH is for a Unified Health Information
System that works on interoperability of systems among authorized parties and
caregivers so that sharing or exchanging of data is made possible to eventually
improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of healthcare delivery. That way,
statistics will also have its contribution to the goal of Universal Health
Care. Sa Tamang Panahon. Thank you and Happy National Statistics Month to all.